Everything is Authentic

Trying to decide if a travel experience is authentic or not is like trying to separate “travelers” from “tourists.” That debate separates those who travel along class and age lines, with travelers proclaiming their experiences better, richer, more true than those of the tourists. There’s even a famous quote by G.K. Chesterton that delineates these two types of travelers: “The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.” Labeling travel experiences as “authentic” works in the same way.

A quick Googling of “authentic Italy” returns 90,400,000 results as of this writing (that’s almost twice the entire current population of Italy) and ranges from recipes (lots of recipes) to group package holidays to farmhouse retreats. I could even find a few bus tours that peddled in the words “real Italy.” The point is that “authentic” and “real” are buzzwords, especially in these days of online trip advising, when the right words will bring more visitors to your website. (I would say that we writers of the Roundtable are guilty of this with this month’s topic. The term authentic Italy comes up too often for us to ignore it.)

So what does make a trip to Italy authentic? How can you make sure that you are living your best travel life, making all the right moves, and doing as the Romans do? I don’t think you can — and that’s ok!

I’ve traveled through Italy in all sorts of combinations: alone, with American girlfriends, with my boyfriend, with my mother, with Italian friends, with my husband and two kids. I’ve lived here twice, first as an au pair with an Italian family and now with my own Italian-American family. Along the way, I’ve explored the “hidden” villages and backstreets, dined at holes-in-the-wall, and immersed myself in the local culture. I’ve also made a lot of mistakes and eaten at plenty of crappy restaurants. Those things happen even when I’m stateside.

While I haven’t, like a few of my Roundtable colleagues, married an Italian and/or started and inn, I have felt that each of my experiences here have been both touristy and authentic. Recently I’ve even turned the concept of authentic on its head, as I’ve become a regular at a very touristy pub that’s near where my son takes weekly music lessons. The bartenders – a young Bangladeshi guy who moved to Rome at age six and speaks flawless Italian and two twenty-something Italian guys who run beers and glasses of wine to British, American, Australian, and German tourists all day – seem delighted to see a familiar face each week. Those three are as hospitable and as “authentic” a representation of Rome’s modern demographics as anywhere else in the city. I’m not saying that you’ll have the same experience. But I am saying that authenticity can encompass a lot.

I think one of the problems of expecting authenticity when we travel is that we are wrapping it into a fantasy of what our trip should be. Rows of Tuscan cypresses, singing Venetian gondoliers, and picture-perfect Amalfi Coast sunsets all figure into our Italian travel dreams or they do at some point. For those who want to delve a little further, there are the Agriturismo (farmhouses) and Airbnb contacts that allow you to live a little bit more among the locals. But make no mistake: you are in Italy to see things and to feel things that you can’t at home. There is a fantasy. While fantasies can become realities, they dwell in a space that is the opposite of authentic. Like the Chesterton quote above, we are, like tourists, coming to see what we planned to see. “Authentic Italy” is all of that but more.

As Robert Reid wrote recently, “No one agrees what’s truly ‘authentic’ about a place. But if you’re near fudge or taffy, you’re probably not where it’s at.” While I do believe authenticity is everywhere in Italy, there are definitely ways that you can travel here and miss it. Try as they might, huge coach tours that whisk visitors around from place to place to show them what they came to see are not where to find authentic Italy. You have to get down on the ground and do some of the seeing for yourself. Seeing what you see, not just what you came to see. That also means stepping back from the camera viewfinder or iPhone to soak in the atmosphere. Look up, look down, look across the horizon. Try to chat with people, even if you can only muster a “buongiorno” or a “ciao.”

I recently stood in a spot that overlooked the Forum, in the Tabularium that connects the Palazzo dei Conservatori and the Palazzo Nuovo of the Capitoline Museums. It was quiet there until a young tourist walked up next to me and aimed her camera. Click click click click click click click. She did a machine gun burst of photos of the panorama that lay before us then walked away. She’s going to see what she came to see when she gets home and edits all of her photos. I just hoped she took the time to enjoy herself and Rome before she edited out the parts that didn’t fit into the narrative of her trip.

This month the Italy Roundtable is publishing posts on authenticity in conjunction with COSI, another group of Italy-focused writers. If you’ve ever wanted to read a lot of takes on “authentic Italy,” here’s your chance!

6 thoughts

AMEN on the tourist/traveler nonsense. And while I’d argue that the coach tour participants are seeing one version of an authentic Italy – it is the actual Colosseum, after all – I do agree that there is potential for a deeper, more profound experience if one deviates even slightly from the script. It’s an open invitation to all travelers, really, that deviation. It’s up to each one of us whether we want to accept.

Melanie, I really enjoyed this article, I always get annoyed by people saying what is ‘truly’ authentic or not. As you said ‘ authenticity can encompass a lot.’ and that might just mean someone smiling when you walk through the door a few times a week. There are so many of us writing about where to go, what to do, the best places to eat — obviously so much has been ‘discovered’ and there isn’t anything wrong in that. Sometimes the best idea is just traveling to the same place every year and staying in a different neighborhood, and slowly visiting your ‘new home’ while also taking a few trips back to old favorites. Once again, great post!

Authenticity is such a slippery thing. It seems like the more we try to define it, the more it skitters away from us. I think it’s because it’s something different for every person. For someone who’s never visited Italy, just seeing the sights ‘in the flesh’ rather than from photos is their version of authenticity. For those who’ve visited before, it’s having a conversation with a local. For those of us who’ve upped sticks and moved here, it’s dealing with day-to-day life. Everyone has their own reality, but maybe what’s important is that whatever you experience should make you feel just a little differently from the way you did before, and that you find your own truth for yourself, rather than through somebody else’s ideas.

Agree with Kate. Authenticity can be hard to catch, and the more we try to coin it, harder it is to even quantify it. Still, that should not stop one from enjoying Italy. If you want to have a true Italian experience, then you have to let go of the usual tour package and just travel Italy on foot. Learn the language so that you can converse with the locals and they will be more than happy to show you what Italy is all about.